Uses of the Thematic Apperception Test

USES OF THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST *
HENRY A. MURRAY, M.D., Pu. D., Camsprince, Mass.

The choice of “projective techniques” as
topic for the theoretical section at the 1950
meeting of The American Psychiatric Asso-
ciation is another heartening sign, an au-
thoritative sign, of multiplying articulations
of interest and purpose between practitioners
of psychiatry and practitioners of psychol-
ogy. It seems that the older and more vener-
able of the two professions is today both
secure enough and magnanimous enough to
give the bumptious younger one an oppor-
tunity to speak up and be heard.

The choice of this topic also indicates, it
seems to me, a mounting enthusiasm among
psychiatrists for investigations of a strictly
psychological sort, in addition to the ever-
important researches of a physiological sort.

I would be not a little embarrassed to de-
vote, as I will now, all the allotted time to
a test with which my name is sometimes
linked, if this test were not a product of
more brains than mine. The germinal sug-
gestion for the TAT came from a brilliant
student in abnormal psychology at Rad-
cliffe, Mrs. Cecilia Roberts,? and, during
the first phases of its development, much of
the picture selection and picture drawing, the
administration and interpretation, was done
by Mrs. Christiana D. Morgan. Since then
a host of ladies and gentlemen—Drs. White,
Sanford, Tomkins, Bellak, Henry, Rapa-
port, Stein, Rosenzweig, and others—have
succeeded more than I have in shaping its
character.

This afternoon, with your tolerance, I
shall assume the role of protagonist and, to
sharpen the argument, put forth the pre-
posterous proposition that the psychiatrist
himself—particularly the psychoanalytically
trained psychiatrist—should learn the simple
art of administering and interpreting the
TAT.

My first reason for suggesting this is
tinged with selfish prejudice. Having a cer-

1 Read at the 106th annual meeting of The Ameri-
can Psychiatric Association, Detroit, Mich., May

1-5, 1950.
2 Now Mrs. Crane Brinton.

2

tain sentimental regard for the TAT, I am
anxious that the young lady be given every
opportunity for refinement and for the ex-
hibition eventually of all her potential charms
and talents. Without the aid of the psycho-
analyst, this goal is scarcely attainable, be-
cause not only is the analyst in the best rela-
tional position to kindle the patient’s whole
capacity for projective story-telling, but with
the knowledge he acquires from free associa-
tions and dream analyses, he, more than
anyone, is capable of discriminating grain
from chaff in the TAT stories, and thus of
laying hold on the facts required for the
construction of dependable principles of
interpretation.

Whatever peculiar virtue the TAT may
have, if any, it will be found to reside, not,
as some have assumed, in its power to mirror
overt behavior or to communicate what the
patient knows and is willing to tell, but
rather in its capacity to reveal things that the
patient is unwilling to tell or is unable to
tell because he is unconscious of them. Since
it is only the depth therapist who, in the
regular course of his work, exposes compo-
nents of the personality that have been un-
conscious to the patient, it is only the depth
psychotherapist who is in a position to
validate the most significant inferences
drawn from the TAT stories. Thus, fur-
ther straight-line progress in the develop-
ment of this technique depends to a con-
siderable extent on whether or not a few
competent psychiatrists will decide that
the TAT is a strategic instrument for ex-
plorations of subterranean mental processes.

More specifically and more cogently, I
would recommend the use of this device at
the start, in the middle, and at the end of
courses of therapy, first of all as an aid in
identifying suppressed and repressed dis-
positions and conflicts, and in defining, as
Bellak(1) has suggested, the nature of the
patient’s resistances to these dispositions ;
second as a therapeutic agent, since the
stories, like dreams, provide admirable start-
ing points for free associations; third as a

577

578

means of estimating the effects of therapy;
and fourth as an instrument of research, espe-
cially in the psychosomatic disorders.

Administration—Although the TAT is
rarely administered as I believe it should be,
the technique is very simple, if you happen
to be the kind of person who is disposed to
hearten people in their creative efforts. All
you have to do is to recite a short paragraph
of plain instructions and with an encouraging
expression—I won’t say a grin—hand the
patient Picture No. 1.

In order to prevent the much too common
occurrence of more or less irrelevant reac-
tions—such as mere descriptions of parts
of the picture—we at the Harvard Clinic
have adopted the practice of requesting the
patient to examine the picture carefully for
about 20 seconds and then to put it aside.

Also, in order to facilitate the establish-
ment in the patient of a single individual
point of orientation through identification
with a preferred figure, we ask him or her
to choose a proper name for the chief charac-
ter before proceeding with the story.

It is often necessary, after the completion
of the first story, to repeat some of the di-
rections, explaining unambiguously to the
patient that every story he tells must have
a plot with a definite ending. But after
this—except for an occasional guiding com-
ment and some judicious praise—the ad-
ministrator should not say anything until
10 stories have been told and the hour is
over.

If properly “warmed up,” most subjects
(instructed to devote about 5 minutes to
each response) will tell stories that are 200
words or more in length (as recorded, say,
on a dictaphone). Although there are cer-
tainly some psychotics and an occasional
neurotic who cannot be induced under ordi-
nary circumstances—say, without the ad-
ministration of a drug—to tell stories of
this length, or even to speak at all, we con-
sider that to come out with stories averaging
less than 200 words apiece usually indicates
that the rapport between administrator and
the patient and/or the “warming up” process
were defective.

At the moment we are testing the effec-
tiveness of other directions given to the
testee. Instead of asking for one long story,

USES OF THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

[ Feb.

we request the subject to respond to each
picture by presenting the outline of as many
plots as possible. Although something is
lost by this method, something is gained:
we obtain about 70 themes instead of 20.
It is too early to say whether, on the average,
the gains outweigh the losses.

Test Material—Physically speaking, as
some of you may know, the TAT is no more
nor less than a set of 19 pictures and one
blank card arranged in a definite order.

The advantages of keeping the stimulus
conditions of a test uniform—of presenting,
say, an unchanging set of pictures in an
unchanging sequence—are generally known
and appreciated. No argument for this prin-
ciple seems necessary today, despite the
fact that the majority of TAT workers, as
far as I can determine, have not seen fit to
abide by it.

Unless we accept this amount of stand-
ardization it will not be possible to do what
we so often want to do: compare the re-
sponses of one subject, or of one class of
subjects, or of one social group, with the
responses of other subjects, classes, social
groups. Every TAT worker knows that
the kinds of responses—in this case, stories—
that he gets are largely determined by the
characteristics of the pictures. In order to
raise the proportion, say, of homicidal and
suicidal themes, one has only to introduce
one new element in one picture—a gun lean-
ing against a wall.

In view of these weighty considerations,
we TAT workers might be disposed to stick
to the standard set of pictures, were it not
that so many of us believe that some of these
pictures are not as significantly provocative
as they might be. We can hardly doubt, for
example, that Thompson(4) is correct in
stating that color increases the stimulating
power of the pictures. The introduction of
two or three abstract or symbolic pictures—
less definite, less structured—might also im-
prove the series.

It is not unlikely that the deeper layers of
fantasy would be more successfully invited
by pictures that were less closely related to
settings and personages of everyday Ameri-
can life. A foreign landscape, a fairy tale
scene, or an animal picture might arouse
fewer defenses than do some of the pictures

1951]

now in use. Furthermore, as Shakow ® and
others have pointed out, certain often-critical
conditions—such as sibling rivalry, sepa-
ration from a supporting person, and so
forth—are not suggested by any of the pic-
tures in the present collection. Finally, in
order to avoid antagonizing subjects who
have esthetic sensibilities, it is evident that
several of the Harvard pictures must be re-
drawn and all of them should be more satis-
fyingly reproduced.

Thus, we have two conflicting aims: One,
to establish and agree to use a standard set
of pictures, and two, to improve the present
set. These aims, as I see them, can be
reconciled only by delegating to an elected
committee the responsibility of judging
whether or not each new picture submitted
for membership in the series is more effec-
tive than the least effective picture in cur-
rent use.

In terms of what criteria should these
judgments be made? In my opinion, the most
readily obtainable criteria—length, vividness,
and dramatic intensity of the stories—cri-
teria proposed by Symonds(3), Thompson
(4), and others are not at all dependable.
What we really need to know is how much
each picture commonly contributes to an un-
derstanding of the patient’s latent, repressed,
and unconscious dispositions. Since the TAT
is not designed to exhibit the overt action-
patterns of people, the possession by any
picture of this kind of virtuosity is almost
wholly irrelevant. If the TAT selection
committee agrees with this opinion, the data
they will require in appraising the effective-
ness of any picture can be obtained only
through an extensive study of the covert
personalities of a large number of subjects
who have taken the test.

Besides an improved set of 20 or 30
pictures for general use, I would strongly
recommend several special sets, of 4 or 5
pictures each, for testing the presence of
specific dispositions or complexes.

Constituents of TAT Stories—The ef-
ficacy of the TAT, like that of most projec-
tion tests, depends on the degree to which
the following assumptions are valid:

1. In characterizing the hero of a story
and in portraying his actions and reactions,

8 Personal communication.

HENRY A. MURRAY

9/9

the storyteller will commonly utilize some
of the components, conscious or unconscious,
of his own past or present personality—for
example, an assumption, an expectation, an
idea, a feeling, an evaluation, a need, a
plan, or a fantasy that he has experienced
or entertained.

2. In characterizing the other major fig-
ures of a dramatic narrative and in por-
traying their actions and reactions, the story-
teller will commonly utilize some of the
personality components (as he has apper-
ceived them) of persons—such as parents,
siblings, rivals, loved objects—with whom he
has had, or is having, significant interactions.

Not infrequently some of the depicted
qualities and reactions of the other major
characters will be derived from once-fan-
tasied figures—inventions of the child’s im-
agination—rather than from apperceptions
of actual people; or they may be derived
from aspects of the storyteller’s own person-
ality (as in the first assumption). That is to
say, the interactions in a story may involve 2
different parts—two subsystems—of the sub-
ject’s total self.

3. In constructing the plot, describing the
endeavors of the hero, his transactions with
the other major figures, and the outcome
and final consequences of these efforts and
interactions, the storyteller will commonly
utilize memory traces, conscious or uncon-
scious, of some of the actual or fantasied
events that have exerted a significant in-
fluence on his development.

Note that these are not only very modest
assumptions, assumptions that have been
made by generations of literary critics, but
that they have been repeatedly demonstrated.

According to the 3 stated propositions, only
a fraction—as a rule a relatively small frac-
tion—of the aggregate of words, phrases,
and sentences that make up a set of stories
represent important constituents (as defined
above) of the patient’s past or present per-
sonality. Asa rule, most of the obtained ma-
terial consists of statements that are not
representative of anything that needs to be
included in a formulation of his personality.
In short, the larger fraction of the protocol
is chaff; the smaller fraction, grain. The
crucial question—how does one thresh out
the grain from these stalks of stories—will
be discussed shortly.

380

The assumption that a set of TAT stories
will contain a fair amount of grain—some-
times a large amount of rich grain—cannot
be verified by observing the subject’s be-
havior in everyday life. The patterns of
the imagination and the patterns of public
conduct are more apt to be related by con-
trast than by conformity. But the psychia-
trist can prove to himself and others how
much real grain is concealed in TAT stories
by waiting a few months until he has ac-
quired a great deal of information and feels
thoroughly at home in his patient’s stream
of consciousness. If then, at this later date,
he examines the set of stories, with mind
alert to every symbolic possibility, he will
almost surely discover that a good deal of
what he has learned during the course of
the analysis is there, varyingly disguised, in
the stories.

Of course some important things, as Tom-
kins(5) and Bellak(1) have pointed out,
will not be found there. Two hours of story-
telling is not enough to reveal all the im-
portant potentialities of a person, and be-
sides this, the ego has its defenses that
operate even when self-consciousness is half-
lost in the process of composing dramatic
plots.

If, say, in the middle of an analysis, the
psychiatrist uses the critical elements and
incidents in the stories as points of departure
for free associations, and by tactful ques-
tioning discovers the known sources of as
many items as possible, and then adds this
information to the knowledge he has al-
ready acquired, he will usually find that the
grain—that is, the significant personal refer-
ences in the stories—can be assigned to one
or more of the following periods of the life
history.

1. Testing Period—The TAT protocol
is likely to include some indication of the
patient’s apperception, appraisal, and reac-
tion to the total testing situation and/or,
more specifically, the administrator of the
test.

2. Current Period—Many of the TAT
grains are straight or distorted representa-
tions of constituents of what historians call
the “specious present.” That is, they portray
the patient’s evaluations, emotional reac-
tions, and expectations in relation to the

USES OF THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

[ Feb.

on-going course of events, the events that
in the last days, weeks, or months have most
frequently or intensely affected him.

3. Past Periods——Of these the period of
childhood is perhaps most important from a
therapeutic standpoint.

According to our experience almost all
TAT protocols contain grains that can be
interpreted as symbolic representations of
childhood occurrences. I would be sur-
prised if there is any traumatic event or
complex known to child psychology that
has not been found in some disguised form
in TAT protocols.

So much for the constituents of TAT
stories and the periods of the life history
from which they are commonly derived.

Let us now turn to the as-yet-unsolved,
or only partly solved, problem of how to pick
the significant elements and forms out of a
web of irrelevancies, when one’s knowledge
of the patient’s past history and character
is nil.

Here I must be brief. Time is running out.
The most dependable criteria, I submit, for
distinguishing the relevant elements and
forms in a set of stories are the following:

1. Symbolic significance: 1.e., an element
or thematic structure that resembles in some
familiar way an element or theme that is
known to be very commonly important in
childhood. Here I am referring to plausible
inferences based on our knowledge of the
principles of dream interpretation.

2. Repetition: 1.e., an element or theme
that recurs 3 or more times in the series of
stories.

3. Uniqueness: by referring to the set
of norms recently published by Rosenzweig
(2) the inexperienced interpreter can, for
the first time, make use of this criterion.

4. Interrelatedness: 1.€., an element or
theme that is known to be mutually related
with an element or theme that has already
been judged to be significant (according to
one of the 3 above-listed criteria.)

5. Subject’s self-involvement: 1.e., indica-
tions that the subject’s emotions—interests
or defenses—were excited when mentioning
a certain element, or during the entire com-
position or part of it.

So much for the huge subject of diag-
nosis.

1951]

This brings me to the end of my allotted
time and the end of the most condensed
summary I could contrive of the Thematic
Apperception Test and its uses.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Bellak, L. Thematic apperception: Failures
and the defenses. Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 12: 122,
1950.
2. Rosenzweig, S. Apperceptive norms for the

HENRY A.

MURRAY 581

Thematic Apperception Test. J. Personal., 17: 475,
1949.

3. Symonds, P. Adolescent Fantasy. New York,
Columbia University Press, 1949.

4. Thompson, C. E., and Bachrach, A. J. The
use of color in the Thematic Apperception Test.
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the AAAS,
New York, 1949.

5. Tomkins, S. S. The present status of the
Thematic Apperception Test. Am. J. Ortho-
psychiat., 19: 358, 1949.